Ahead of the schedules earnings call, T-Mobile has released its full financial results for 2014, and for the fourth quarter. And it makes for good reading as the earnings reports generally do these days for T-Mo.

.
FINANCIALS

In the fourth quarter – as previously announced – T-Mobile added 2.1 million customers to its ranks. With all four quarters’ totals added up, the carrier added an impressive 8.3 million subscribers over the full year. Of the 2.1 million net adds in Q4, 1.3 million were branded postpaid adds. All in all, the carrier added 4.9 million branded postpaid customers in 2014, 4.0 million of which were phone subscriptions.

Perhaps more impressive is when you look at the industry’s postpaid phone growth over Q4 and 2014. T-Mobile captured 80% of the phone growth in Q4, and almost 100% in 2014. Meaning: T-Mobile’s growth has been phenomenal.

For those interested in financials, T-Mobile’s total revenues in Q4 were up 19.4% year on year. Service revenues were up 13.6% for the same period. This was lead by strong subscriber growth and the increase in the average billings per user (ABPU), which climbed to $61.80 in Q4, up 5.1% on Q4 2013.

Interestingly, as part of today’s report, T-Mobile is introducing three new metrics to help investors and analysts get a better sense of how well the carrier is performing. Those are as follows:

ARPA – Average Revenue Per Account

ABPA – Average Billings Per Account

Customers Per Account

On these new metrics, T-Mo noted that “branded postpaid ARPA and ABPA [are] indicative of its revenue growth potential given the increase in the average number of branded postpaid phone customers and increased penetration of mobile broadband devices.”

With those metrics in mind, the company announced that ARPA for the fourth quarter was $109.87, while branded postpaid ABPA was $143.79. ABPE, incidentally, grew 12.9% year-on-year, driven by the growth in EIP billings. EBITDA (Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) was $5.6 billion for the full year, 2014. In Q4, adjusted EBITDA was $1.8 billion, up 41.4% year on year.

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NETWORK EXPANSION

T-Mobile also used its financial report to mention network expansion, which is “continuing at an accelerated pace.” By the end of 2014, the LTE network covered 265 million Americans, exceeding the 250 million goal set by the carrier. As we’ve already heard, the target now is to reach 300 million by the end of 2015.

The network operator is continuing to roll out Wideband LTE in metro areas, while simultaneously deploying 700MHz band 12 and 1900MHz PCS spectrum. At the end of 2014, 121 market areas were covered by Wideband. By the end of 2015, it should be 150 market areas.

Perhaps the most exciting network news is that T-Mobile’s 700MHz spectrum portfolio which now includes enough airwaves to cover 190 million people. A lot of that is yet to be deployed, or is restricted by TV broadcast channel interference, but the company has already rolled it out in Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Minneapolis, Washington DC, Houston and Dallas.

All in, T-Mobile’s cash capital expenditures reached $1.3 billion, most of which was investment in network modernization, 4G LTE deployment and the rollout of 700MHz and 1900MHz spectrum. That doesn’t include the AWS-3 licenses, covering 97 million people, recently won for $1.8 billion. The company plans to pay $1.4 billion for these licenses in March 2015, which is net the $0.4 billion deposit already paid in October 2014. T-Mobile should receive the spectrum in the second quarter of 2015.

As for the continued MetroPCS combination, T-Mobile continues to expand the brand and re-farm its spectrum. At the end of 2014, MetroPCS was available in 55 markets with nearly 11,000 points of sale. 87% of the entire MetroPCS customer base is now on the T-Mobile network leaving only 13% still on the old CDMA network. 73% of Metro’s spectrum has been re-farmed, so far, and integrated in to T-Mobile’s network. By the second half of this year, MetroPCS’ old network should be completely shut down.

“In the fourth quarter of 2014, T-Mobile decommissioned the CDMA portion of the MetroPCS networks in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento. Total decommissioning costs for CDMA network shutdowns amounted to $263 million in 2014. In 2015, the Company has already decommissioned the CDMA portion of the MetroPCS networks in Atlanta and the Detroit metro area, bringing the overall total to 8 market shutdowns so far. The Company expects to decommission all the remaining CDMA markets by the second half of 2015, and expects to incur additional network decommissioning costs in the range of $500 million to $600 million with substantially all the costs expected to be incurred in 2015.”

.FORWARD LOOKING

For 2015, T-Mobile has – yet again – set itself conservative targets to hit. It expects between 2.2-3.2 million branded postpaid net adds and targets $6.8-$7.2 billion of adjusted EBITDA.

In short: It’s looking pretty good for T-Mobile. Revenue and customer additions are strong. The continued expense cause by network expansion and spectrum acquisition is eating in to the earnings, but it’s good to see T-Mo spending on what’s important and keeping pricing competitive.

About Cam Bunton

Cam Bunton, Managing Editor. A film school graduate from the University of Cumbria, UK, Cam's past life was in mobile phone retail. His passion for cell phones got him in to that industry, and then in to this one. A family man with three kids, he somehow manages to balance his work duties with family life and a runaway Twitter addiction. Follow him on twitter: @CamBunton

Awesome I anticipated this without a doubt. But tmobile needs to add more diverse range of devices like windows and blackberry. Also need to offer more wide range of accessories like Parrott zik 2.0 among others.

itguy08

Why? Almost nobody is buying Windows Phone devices. Same with Blackberry. Both are DECLINING so it’s wise to not incur the expense of those.

eanfoso

Funny you should say, 5 lines in my account left for cricket BECAUSE of Windows phones, we thought about att but then again they’re much more expensive and now we’re paying less that l than with t mobile while rocking 41 Mega Pixel cameras and what not, so in a way it was good that t mobile doesn’t have Windows phones otherwise we’d have never seen the value in cricket.

itguy08

41 Megapixels on a small sensor with horrible optics does not a great camera make. But it sure makes great marketing!

Verizonthunder

You are wrong that Nokia lumia 1020 has one of the few best cameras on a smartphone so far.

eanfoso

Obviously the itguy tag is a lie.

Verizonthunder

Lie … how pathetic you never owned a quality Nokia smartphone.

eanfoso

Lol no kidding, he must be one of those Android fans, blinded by Sammy or something along those lines, it’s really funny arguing with people like that though!

What in the phuck are you talking about ? The os on a phone is an extension of the PC OS, you are one dumb phuck for sure

eanfoso

Even an extension isn’t the same thing, come on dude step up your game.

eanfoso

You’re retarded, for one the sensor is humongous, I have the Nokia 808 PureView and my god just the camera capabilities and offline maps were worth the 500$ it came out for, sadly no LTE and it was Symbian, now the Lumia 1020 has the absolute best camera, no camera in the lagdroid world or IOS even has a xenon flash, but I mean you must be happy with a phone that can download malware from its official store, not me, I travel too much to not enjoy lifes moments and have a good picture, and obviously enjoy offline navigation for those areas where t mobile, and now cricket, do not have coverage which is mainly outside the U.S.

Orlando Duran

Your wrong about the camera, it’s not about megapixels in a camera. Shows how little you know. android is a Linux kernel, Linux has been around for over 25 years. Linux was built with security features since day one, unlike windows that’s very vulnerable. You can’t download malware from the android market. Too many anti malware software that operates on Google side. Google maps allow offline download. Tmobile has unlimited international data in over 120 countries, so no your wrong idiot

eanfoso

Yes not only about the mega pixels, but they sure do matter when you blow up the image and zoom in, it’s amazing when I travel abroad and zoom in and see every little detail, it’s also about color saturation, white balance, aspect ratio, shutter time (I have mine at 2 seconds, which is really long exposure, but the longer the exposure time the better) also the wide angle lens for an incredible ISO of up to 4,000 and let’s not forget, ois was introduced by the Lumia 920 as well as wireless charging, oh and don’t forget that well Android at least in the united states doesn’t offer any phones with a xenon flash, so don’t worry, I do know about my cameras, although I refuse to drop a grand on a dslr when phones from Nokia produce such quality or better. Preciously I had a Nokia 808 PureView and before it a Nokia n8, and for a brief amount of time in 2008 a Sony Ericsson satio which by 2008 12 mega pixels Carl Zeiss lens was incredible. Now on the android/Linux, it’s great that it’s been running for however long ON COMPUTERS, please don’t be that retard who compares a computer OS with that of a phone, Windows phones have existed since well the earliest one I can think of was the hp ipaq from 2005, which again, was amazing, mainly for its translating capabilities just from taking a picture of something it’ll translate the text from whatever language to English, at this point in time Google hadn’t bought Android just yet. I used to have a lagdroid phone (galaxy note 2 was my last one, before it I had an HTC glacier and a galaxy s) and saying that the Google playstore doesn’t have malware is like asking Kim kardashian if she has ever had sex, my god all of those “free” apps and games, plus all the annoying ads, glad that Windows phones don’t experience that mess, now I take it as you never leave the country, when you travel the speed is throttled to 2g, but in reality I got at best 56 kbps, plus they still charge you 20 cents a minute for making phone calls, so why do that when I can just buy a local SIM card, put it in my phone and save money while having decently fast internet? And even then, t mobile roams to the cheapest carriers that only have coverage in big cities, like the other day I went to Mexico and I only roamed on movistar which only has coverage in big cities, I tried forcing my phone to do telcel but to no avail, so yes I’ll definitely need my offline navigation since there are areas that I travel to that do not offer any type of cell service, haha only a child resorts to name calling. Pathetic.

Stone Cold

There has been a ton of malware in the play store. It is well documented.

ChristianMcC

There is more posted to the play store, but that doesn’t necessarily mean people are getting infected. I have never been hit, because I’m not stupid enough to download anything fishy, nor do I see the options for the type of apps I search for, as I’m sure often the play store bots have caught the offending apps.

itguy08

It’s not humongous. Maybe for a phone, but it’s still a small sensor. Then again, I shoot with a DSLR with a HUMONGOUS sensor and superior optics. Even point and shoots today take better pictures because, wait for it, they have better optics!

It’s an OK camera, very gimmicky with the downres images an what not. But if that’s your thing, that’s fine. Personally, the smartphone camera is for quick snaps of mediocre quality when you want to share quickly.

But if you enjoy the limited selection of apps (dwindling daily), the God-awful UI, and whatnot, then I guess Windows Phone is for you.

eanfoso

Well glad at least you did admit that it was an okay camera, but still best in a smartphone, but you know, I compared the shots with a canon eos and they were frankly extremely similar, the color saturation, aspect ratio, stills etc, so definitely a cheaper route to do a Lumia than a dslr, on the apps side I couldn’t be happier, I have my chase bank app, civilization revolution, FIFA, and well a bunch of Xbox games, Pandora (which gives you a free year of premium use, aka no ads) Spotify, iheart radio, and one of my favorite features: I can lock my screen and YouTube will still play on the background, now the UI is by no means awful, I don’t see it I don’t know, maybe I’m used to the live tiles constantly showing something new versus a static icon, who knows, and let’s not forget the built Nokia quality, much much better in hand than a plasticsung toy.

ChristianMcC

The Galaxy K zoom has a xenon flash, FYI.

eanfoso

Thank you I stand corrected lol

Verizonthunder

I would like something different besides android and ios. Even would be fine with samsung own operating system tizen.

eanfoso

I’d have loved a Nokia n9 or a Jolla phone lol but yes all in all you’re right, I love t mobile but it sucks if you’ve been a Nokia fan, I’m now with cricket and so glad att phones work here man, t mobile missed out on 5 lines with us.

Verizonthunder

Yes I have thought about the Nokia n9 was very promising. My favorite Nokia smartphone was e71 wow battery life and reception no phone maker could touch that. Well cricket is becoming more competitive worth advanced plan 20gb of data with a LTE only smartphone for $60 or $55 with auto pay.

eanfoso

I know man! Plus for the people that use no data what so ever still get 2.5 gigs, check this out: 5 lines with t mobile we paid shy of 200$ after tax, mind you we don’t have any phones from t mobile, with one line unlimited data and international calling, with cricket: 120$ for 5 lines one line with 20 gigs of data, unlimited international calling even to cell phones and 2.5 gigs of high speed, best part is: We get to use the phones we want with full support and we also got a 500$ credit for switching, so it’s crazy to not be on cricket.

Verizonthunder

Honestly been tempted to switch to cricket as you can get used at&t the smartphones cheap online.

eanfoso

Do it dude, right now they have a free month of service if you switch to them, just make sure your phone is unlocked

eanfoso

By the way, my favorite Nokia was the n900, dude did you see the unboxing of it?

Verizonthunder

Yes was nice looking and worked on tmobile 3g network at the time.

itguy08

Tine would be cool. As would a revitalized WebOS.

Verizonthunder

Well then that would be up to LG as hp sold the operating system.

eanfoso

BlackBerry 10 is pretty much a revitalized webos

Jay J. Blanco

You can always buy unlocked tmobile is a GSM carrier

eanfoso

And be screwed outside a major city, probably not worth it.

Jay J. Blanco

Not if the phone support band 2 LTE. And band 4. Along with band 2 3G. You’ll be good

eanfoso

Yeah they wouldn’t, Windows phones from Europe and Att do not have band 2 nor band 2 3g, and while the att versions do have band 4 it’s still pretty much restricted to the cities only, not for rural use.

eanfoso

Yeah a lot of us Windows fans have jumped ship

Doakie

So does that mean they finally leap frogged Sprint to take the third place spot?

sushimane

I wish lol but they are only 900 thousand below sprint maybe the Q1 if they keep on adding 2 million new customers.

james

No, they were close. 55.1 Million tmobile to 55.9 sprint pcs. But tmo did make a small profit .101 million dollars.

Orlando Duran

1.8billion, read the article idiot

Hector Arteaga

Profits were 101 million. Don’t call people an idiot. Especially if you’re wrong.

Orlando Duran

You stupid moron, read the damn article. …….EBITDA (Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) was $5.6 billion for the full year, 2014. In Q4, adjusted EBITDA was $1.8 billion, up 41.4% year on year.

Hector Arteaga

You need to relax. Stop calling me or other names. Do some research, I don’t believe you know what you’re talking about. In any case, I hope you get banned for your bullying.

Orlando Duran

Bullying….lol. grow a pair

Hector Arteaga

I don’t need to show “I’ve got a pair” in a comments section. Believe me. Anyway, let’s ignore the child. You could have very easily said you disagreed by saying so. No need to come to a comments section to show you’re tough. Done with you.

Orlando Duran

Hector…..stop with the pansy @$$ replies….no political correctNess here, NEVER ! ICE is on the hunt , bEtter watch out. Your the phuckin child. I’m sick and tired of petulant, narcissistic phucks like you bitching and complaining about everything, be thankful you get your free handouts.

Hector Arteaga

I wish you personally knew me, I guarantee you wouldn’t be such a warrior then. That keyboard makes you feel powerful doesn’t it? Too bad it wouldn’t be so in the real world.

eanfoso

He looks fat in the picture, poor dude probably doesn’t get laid.

Hector Arteaga

Hahaha. Yep, he does.

Cam Bunton

Your hope has been fulfilled..

Hector Arteaga

Thank you sir! He was getting pretty aggressive.

Chris L

EBITDA is not profit. He’s right. You might want to be less loud and lose the attitude when you dont know what youre talking about.

JoeMail

whoa! relax armchair warrior. take a walk outside.

eanfoso

That’s just amortization values, which is the overall revenue but not profit. I had to endure three semesters of engineering economics but this was a cool concept to learn.

james

I kind of just ignored Mr Orlando and he went away. Thanks for the support guys I wasn’t wrong, and thanks for banning that dude Cam.
We can have diagreements while being civil.

Hector Arteaga

He got banned? Yesss!!! Lol. Yep. We can strong gly disagree, but the name calling is just childish.

MC Mickey Lee

Oh, we won’t hear a word from the trolls today.

eanfoso

That rural coverage though

Jason

Thats the customers fault, if they want good TMobile coverage they should relocate to a major city and preferably live in a tent to ensure no wall penetration issues;)

TMobile is catering to the homeless too much, they get cheap prepaid and they get the best service… Jeez TMo

eanfoso

Yeah I’m mainly talking about for those of us who travel, could care less about those hillbillies that stay in the sticks

I got good coverage of Tmo in Atlanta, Macon and Houston. If you live out in the country, then you deserved to get the expensive VZW.

KingCobra

Haha I wouldn’t say ‘deserve’. Hopefully at 300M POPs even more rural dwellers will have access to T-Mobile’s network. No one should ‘deserve’ Verizon.

WoW Fanners Got worse

So your implying that since TMobiles rural coverage is horrible that customers in these area deserve to pay more??? … GTFO
It’s the rural population’s fault that TMobile sat on it’s thumbs for atleast a decade hmmm

I think you deserve to pay more because you like to fit things in your mouth that are way to big to fit, but thats your thing I guess

By any chance did you drive to the above cities? My biggest thing about cell service is that I am able to use in between cities… Otherwise you mine as well just find a phone booth

afive720

Deserve? Wtf lol… Either way, not true. Atlanta is good unless you are driving…. And Houston… Not so much. T-Mobile has great data speeds, but many dead spots with bad indoor coverage. I live in Atlanta.

Jay J. Blanco

Awesome I knew revenue was gone jump because 1 I bought 20 dollars worth of tablet data on top of the 10 dollars I use to pay. T-Mobile know where they can drive profit and tablets in one way

KingCobra

They got me to add $10 of tablet data with that ‘Match phone data’ promotion. Couldn’t turn down 5GB for just an extra $10 per month.

Jay J. Blanco

I used all my data stash in a month. I’m screwed and have to buy passes when I need faster speed lol
T-Mobile is gonna love me

Tttmobil

Or tether with your phone….

Seriously

Tmobile lost $20 a month from this quarter so I guess it evens out LOL

Prepaid customers made up 40% of the incoming ones without a proportional attention to that given to postpaid customers. If the same perks were extended to prepaid customers, perhaps TMUS would have attracted even more new customers and lept Sprint.

BTW, how much did MetroPCS contribute to the customer base?

KingCobra

If you give prepaid customers the same perks as postpaid then what would be the point of going postpaid? Carriers want more postpaid business than prepaid as postpaid customers usually pay more per account and are less likely to leave to other carriers.

Auggie Loves Prepaid

Blah blah prepaid blah blah

Actually it would of pulled TMobile further lower when it comes to financials

If anything your percentage proves that TMobile is in alot of trouble, 40% of new sub adds could just walk away without any attachment

Aurizen

so, did they beat sprint for #3?

KingCobra

No. Sprint is still ahead by about 900K

Jay J. Blanco

To those who said the uncarrier movement is unstainable read it and weap

TK – Indy

For the year, Net Income was $247 million. They need $4-$5 billion to remain competitive, according to DT parent. That is clearly unsustainable.

Jay J. Blanco

We have a whole new year. If t-mobile adds 5 Million customers and income continues to climb they will be fine.

TK – Indy

Yeah, they are projecting 2-3 million adds this year, so I guess they won’t be fine.

Mr Paul

And the speeds, come tumblin’ down
And Ray’s network, it comes crumblin’, crumblin’
And T-Mobile comes tumblin’, tumblin’, down!

Fanner

TMobile needs 5 years atleast and the top need zero/negative growth.

Besides why would you want to lower TMobile customer growth by 3 mill then prior year?
If your talking 5 mill a quarter, cocaine is helluva drug and you should pursue treatment immediately

Jay J. Blanco

5 mill is for the year lol not quarter.

JayJay Gone Wild

So you want TMobile to lose growth and somehow that would help?
Are you aware TMobile is 55 mill lower than each of the top 2?
Last but not least do you have the ability to count to ten?

Jay J. Blanco

I didn’t say anything its a estimate. just like t-mobile changes their. You never know it’s a projection into the future.

Are you aware the top 2 are adding majority tablet lines? Lower prices and adding perks for existing customers to combat loss.

Are you are of porting ratios?
are you aware that the top don’t have unlimited data.

A opinion and estimate is two different things. Learn the difference.

Jayjay Gaga

Either way what TMobile is doing now is not sustainable as stated by Dt….

Att and Verizon may be only adding tablets but they already have profitable income coming in and will remain profitable for the upcoming future
TMo on the other hand is a work in progress

If TMobile only added 5 mill next year, there would be alot disappointment within TMo, Dt and here at TMoNews

Jay J. Blanco

It’s not at all. Long as they add customers and keep churn low they will be okay.

T-Mobile has profitable income too.
Long as spending is in check.

It would not be a disappointment because things are looking great. Can’t say that about Sprint though

afive720

I hate sprint more than most, the way their company is run is the reason they failed so hard in the past. I’m strong supporter of T-Mobile, but..

Disagree. Sprint has something T-Mobile does not, a lot of very good spectrum. They were bleeding customers and I don’t deny that their network was horrible for years… But, since Softbank took over it has finally been going up. Look at new rootmetrics report even. Sure, they may not be a speedy network still but their overall coverage and overall reliability is much better than tmo. In order for T-Mobile to succeed, that had to change. Here in Atlanta they have pockets with amazing LTE, 110mbps! But in buildings, hit or miss. Many dead spots on major highways and poor coverage in some of the busy areas outside the city. Same goes for DC and Denver.

In order for Tmobile to truly compete they need to turn profit, gaining subs is great but DT is right about needing much much more. Attracting users with premise of unlimited web and lower prices was brilliant as they built out a fast network with virtually no load. Now that this network is finally utilized, they need to make more. We’ve seen them try with plan restructure, with stores being pushed to charge Sim fees, Sim fee in create, etc… All the current subs need to turn way more profit for them to have cash to compete with the other 3.

Sprint won’t make big news this year, other than quietly upgrading their outdated network. By year end T-Mobile will increase data speeds, but still have serious gaps. That’s what keeps many from switching. T-Mobile will keep adding subs but again, only due to pricing and unlimited. If their prices are raised to closely resemble Verizon to make profit, they won’t have success due to network reliability.

I love Tmobile, I really do. I had to move my lines to big red because we drop calls on the road a lot, can’t run a business like that. I know people whom I convinced to try tmo and even referred to rootmetrixs maps to show them, but they ended up leaving because rootmetrics doesn’t tell the story of how bad it is in some major office buildings on tmo.

Bottom line, T-Mobile needs to be very proactive to stay competitive. I think part of it needs to come from DT so that they’ll have the money to be a major player. Sprint don’t fail while Softbank is paying their bills and investing in infrastructure. Verizon will still be cocky and use their network to keep solid profit..

I have a total of 3 lines and managed over $1000 worth of credits to switch, 30gb of web for $15 more than what I paid on Tmobile for unlimited. 30gb is plenty for me and the much more reliable network is worth it.

When it comes to LTE, sprint has major potential with spectrum. Att is good with it too. Verizon? Ton of it. Tmo? Needs more to be competitive. The 700mhz rollout in metro is great, but add 20m more subscribers and you have a bottleneck. Verizon? With xlte not an issue at all.

Jay J. Blanco

2.5Ghz is not very good spectrum. Good for capacity but bad for coverage period. 700mhz is lol. N I know t-mobile has building pent ration issues in Atlanta I’ve experienced it that’s why they own 700mhz they are simply waiting on a station to relocate. Should be done by September.

You realize Xlte is AWS-3, which t-mobile use of LTE in cities. T-Mobile Is good on capacity for a good while.

Sprint is going be hurting because they aren’t deploying Vo-LTE which they gone suffer. Customers gone love

Jay J. Blanco

Oh yeah DC and Denver has Active 700mhz towers . Only Note 4, Avant and Tab 4 can aces it currently need more devices

afive720

That’s fine, still has issues on note 4. It is much better than it used to be and it is more than usable. Again, I really love T-Mobile. But, it isn’t on verizon level when it comes to overall performance and penetration. You have to realize that verizon has a ton of money, spectrum and customers. All of that will keep them ahead, sadly. I was on T-Mobile and praised them since way before Legere took over as CEO. They always had a fast network, just not the coverage or customers. He really changed the industry. That’s why verizon and at have these new plans, they took notice of T-Mobile which helped all consumers. But, it isn’t enough when the parent company of T-Mobile treats them like red headed step child. After an amazing year they have the decency to say that it isn’t sustainable. Even if that’s so, you need to hide that fact and support T-Mobile. Instead, they are biting away at the success of their U.S. carrier.

Jay Holm

With the network upgrades and expansions being completed by the end of the year, their profit will only go up in 2016.

You guys

LOL Walk away from the grown up table
Didn’t someone from TMobile that has access to TMobile balance sheets say the opposite couple weeks prior?

Jay J. Blanco

This is for you n them. Everyone actually has access it’s a public traded company

Cumon Jay

So disregard what was claimed by TMobile couple weeks prior?

You looked at all their financials then since it’s readily available?

You read this article and I bet thats the only thing you did to come to your conclusion…. smh

Highchair is around the corner otherwise there is a booster seat in the closet

Jay J. Blanco

You mean DT. n so did the CEO. Which is a shareholder too, no one makes remarks without losing at the numbers, growth. Etc.

I read the press releases too. Investors relations duh. I’m a young investor I don’t talk out the side of my neck like some people do. my stock portfolio is constantly evolving and updating.

Walked

So the owner of TMobile stated it was unsustainable???

Jay J. Blanco

Yes

Doogie Howser

But your stating the opposite and reading the same financial information? Care to express why your more reliable source?

Jay Holm

Precisely! Next milestone…60 million customers for T-Mobile.

Terry

And $60 billion in losses.

archerian

In 2014 vs 2013, Postpaid ARPU has gone down, as also ARPA hence the new metrics of ABPA and ABPU .. It would be even lower if tablets are included. This is the true metric of strength in wireless service.

What’s the advantage in touting ABPA increases? It means you collect more money from users as you have financed more/pricier devices to them, of which 46% are sub-prime loans. Collecting more money for a device you financed from nearly half sub-prime loans isn’t anything impressive.

The other new metric ABPU – it’s partially obtained from dividing EIP across all users, even the ones who are not on EIP. What does T-mobile hope to showcase with this metric that someone cannot calculate by looking at EIP outstanding balances in their income sheet?

When Postpaid Average Revenue is going down and Billing is going up, it means you are becoming more of a finance company than a wireless one. A finance company that carries a huge chunk of non-prime loans. This is like saying – the money we make per user from wireless service is lower, but we finance a device and we collect the installment from it too, so we collect more money from them now. This is for the device they financed to begin with. T-mobile wants us to see through subsidies and how the cost of the phone is ‘hidden’ in the monthly service, now they want to play the same trick not on consumers but on shareholders. We loaned our customers a phone for which we paid the phone manufacturer in full to begin with, now whatever money comes back to us as installments is also part of our ‘billing’, and that’s increasing!! .. wow!

Jay J. Blanco

Hence the fact that all 4 carriers do this I guess their all banks now. And all of their ARPU is decreasing

archerian

Most carriers leave device subsidies as liabilities and don’t spin it to look like added billing. To your original point about sustainability, when you have $100 for 4 lines and $100 for 2 lines UL, its a rather low $33 ARPU, but when it’s spun into ARPA, it becomes a good looking $100. Decreasing ARPU means a lot of the new additions T-mobile has are $10 Add a Lines with minimal addons. Also, Verizon has categorically stated they are not going after sub-prime customers as they don’t want to enter into that risky market.

Do I want T-mobile to succeed? Yes, it provided service for me several years back when I couldn’t afford any other service with fresh credit and $500 deposits per line. But current methods for adding new customers bring down overall ARPU. T-mobile is fast becoming a bank to finance devices and an insurance company to provide JUMP! They even have a prepaid debit card :)

KingCobra

Looking great. Network expansion definitely on pace to meet that late summer goal. Also would you look at that, Uncarrier turned a small profit while simultaneously beating the other 3 carriers in postpaid adds by quite a large margin. Actual phone adds too for the most part, rather than giving away tablets to pad the numbers.

Looking forward to that 300M by year end 2015.

ChristianMcC

Minus Valentine’s weekend, for tablet padding:-)

Hector Arteaga

Can’t wait for the 300 either! That’s exciting.

Jay Holm

So in the 2nd half of this year when the remaining spectrum from Metro is shut down, does that mean markets that are stuck on 15mhz of Wideband LTE, will be bumped up to 20mhz of LTE?

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